Sh*t vs. Acceptable

[MDV]

Speaking of which, does anyone remember that game on windows 3.1 where you were skiing down a mountain and no matter what you did you got eaten by a yeti? $%&# that shite, Crysis is WAY better.

[38thBeatle]

A lot of guitars are bought by relatives who have no idea of what they are getting but just know that junior wants an electric guitar. Issues such as quality are not uppermost in their minds and they are perhaps thinking that junior will lose interest so best not spend too much. I overheard two people discussing buying a guitar for someone in Argos. They bought one over the other because it had more pickups which they seemingly equated to better value for money as you get three. Not that they knew what pickups were by the sound of things.

[tomjackson]

The choice today is amazing, the quality / price is the best I have ever known.

I think the Squire Classic vibes could be your only guitar at any level.

I played a kay SG guitar that had been round the whole school.  2 screwn held a piece of metal in place that was something resembling a trem.  I learned Hendrix and Led Zep on it.  The posh kid I knew had a brand new Encore!

Sh*t used to be acceptable until you got good enough to get something better....

[Jonny]

Are Squire CVs REALLY that good? I thought I'd be OK going with a MIM Strat for my techno/synth guitar but, really - are they? Who on the board has one?

[ash96]

I think squier has done pretty well. they're still pretty cheap, but the quality of them is going up.

However there are a lot of other brands like encore etc who are there purely to be cheap, so they're generally pretty terrible.

It depends on many factors but i know kids have a very short attention to span to a lot of things. one minute little jimmy is screaming 'i want to play guitar, i want to be like *insert trendy band name*.' then two weeks later he wants to be the next tony hawks or something.

I totally believe in getting something cheap to start with to see if theyre keen and stuff, then upgrade later. however, you have to get 'the best of the cheapest' like squiers/pacificas/vintage rather than the cheapest pile of poop available, otherwise that could put him off majorly.
I played a Squier strat for the first 3 years of playing, then saved up for a USA strat when i was more serious.

[dave_mc]

Well, the PC and microelctronics in general is an extreme illustration of that (wide enough demand drving down prices without overly hampering production quality), but the biggest obvious difference is obsolecance. Guitar gear doesnt do it, in electronics its inevitable - we all know as soon as a computer or phone is on the shelf its obsolete, and that also keeps demand high.

Cars might be better. People still like old cars, they dont go totally out of the window every 5 years because the next thing is better in every possible way.

Unless someones getting nostalgic for their old 386? :lol:

yeah, of course, the obsolescence thing is something where guitars are very different from most other products. i still say the analogy was close enough, though. :)

speaking of old games, i liked a lot of the old games. there was kind of a golden age around the late 80s/early 90s where computers were getting enough power to make a game not just look like 2 red lines and a dot, and where they could actually implement more complex styles of game (e.g. civilization, settlers etc.), but where most of the game companies were still small and were allowed and encouraged to be original, instead of just cranking out tomb raider 57 or the latest rushed-out movie franchise.

that being said, plenty of new games are good, and plenty of the old ones were rubbish too, so as always it goes back to treating everything on its own merits...

oh, and i just realised i typed "technology" when i meant "analogy" in my last post, sorry :oops:

[syr2012]

I think squier has done pretty well. they're still pretty cheap, but the quality of them is going up.

However there are a lot of other brands like encore etc who are there purely to be cheap, so they're generally pretty terrible.

It depends on many factors but i know kids have a very short attention to span to a lot of things. one minute little jimmy is screaming 'i want to play guitar, i want to be like *insert trendy band name*.' then two weeks later he wants to be the next tony hawks or something.

I totally believe in getting something cheap to start with to see if theyre keen and stuff, then upgrade later. however, you have to get 'the best of the cheapest' like squiers/pacificas/vintage rather than the cheapest pile of poop available, otherwise that could put him off majorly.
I played a Squier strat for the first 3 years of playing, then saved up for a USA strat when i was more serious.

I started with a squier (an affinity strat, could take new saddles/bridge and a neck, but sounds pretty good nonetheless). I also have another squier (standard this time, needed the extra fret). The standards are made of agathis (which is quite unfortunate if you don't find one that sounds reasonable). I managed to luck out and found one that sounds pretty decent (good lows, moderate but strong mids, but lacking in highs). Once I manage to secure some reasonable funds, I'll probably switch out my bridge HD for a C-Bomb and add a PK neck. The ceramics actually do pretty well in it.

[MDV]

Well, the PC and microelctronics in general is an extreme illustration of that (wide enough demand drving down prices without overly hampering production quality), but the biggest obvious difference is obsolecance. Guitar gear doesnt do it, in electronics its inevitable - we all know as soon as a computer or phone is on the shelf its obsolete, and that also keeps demand high.

Cars might be better. People still like old cars, they dont go totally out of the window every 5 years because the next thing is better in every possible way.

Unless someones getting nostalgic for their old 386? :lol:

yeah, of course, the obsolescence thing is something where guitars are very different from most other products. i still say the analogy was close enough, though. :)

speaking of old games, i liked a lot of the old games. there was kind of a golden age around the late 80s/early 90s where computers were getting enough power to make a game not just look like 2 red lines and a dot, and where they could actually implement more complex styles of game (e.g. civilization, settlers etc.), but where most of the game companies were still small and were allowed and encouraged to be original, instead of just cranking out tomb raider 57 or the latest rushed-out movie franchise.

that being said, plenty of new games are good, and plenty of the old ones were rubbish too, so as always it goes back to treating everything on its own merits...

oh, and i just realised i typed "technology" when i meant "analogy" in my last post, sorry :oops:

Fine then!

I think people get confused with old games. Memory is a hazy thing. If you had civ and civ 4 or doom and crysis or privateer and X3 next to each other, I know fine well what everyone would end up playing!

[mikeluke]

My son (aged 9) wanted to start to learn so I got him an Epi Les Paul Junior (supposedly MIJ) - the body is nothing to write home about but the neck is really nice and it plays much better than the £70 that it cost me. OK it does not have much variety in sound from one P-90 but as a learner guitar it does the job. Never tried a Chinese one to see if there is any difference but this one does seem to have quite a good level of finish and feel on the neck - for me, this is the thing that can really put kids off - a nasty neck!

[dave_mc]

Fine then!

I think people get confused with old games. Memory is a hazy thing. If you had civ and civ 4 or doom and crysis or privateer and X3 next to each other, I know fine well what everyone would end up playing!

i still play my old games all the time, I'm not going by old, hazy memories (though of course nostalgia could be playing a part). I'd play them more only a lot of them won't work on newer machines... I think i need to download a decent DOS emulator or something like that. :lol:

EDIT: i haven't played civ 4, but i've got civ 3 and 2, and have played civ and civ net- i agree that civ 3 is the best (though it's still plagued by the same annoying AI problems), but often older games don't get sequels, and it's not guaranteed that they'll be better settlers 2 is better than the first one (actually more or less the same just with a few more features), but settlers 4 is horrible, they completely changed it and it killed it.

Depends on the type of game, too, of course. and I'm certainly not saying that all new games are cr@p, certain games just couldn't be done with older machines.

[MDV]

I dont object to old games...but newer is typically better, in my experience. I liked civ 2 better than civ 3, though, at least in part because of the videos of the status analyst people, and when you were at war and winning the military guy was drunk :lol:

[dave_mc]

that's true. I lost my cd rom of it, though, so i can't get the videos any more. :lol:

and remember the annoying trade advisor in modern times, "let's do lunch, sir!". nearly made you wish you were in recession so you didn't have to listen to him.

Main things i like more about civ 3 is the borders and culture aspect, and also the whole resources/luxuries aspect, both of which make it a lot more realistic. In civ 2 the other teams could have armies 2 miles outside your capital and not be at war because there was no concept of borders, and also it's a bit daft when you can make musketeers but have no saltpetre...

the rest is more or less the same, though, bar slightly fancier graphics.

[HTH AMPS]

Well, the PC and microelctronics in general is an extreme illustration of that (wide enough demand drving down prices without overly hampering production quality), but the biggest obvious difference is obsolecance. Guitar gear doesnt do it, in electronics its inevitable - we all know as soon as a computer or phone is on the shelf its obsolete, and that also keeps demand high.

Cars might be better. People still like old cars, they dont go totally out of the window every 5 years because the next thing is better in every possible way.

Unless someones getting nostalgic for their old 386? :lol:

ahh, the days of dual 5.25" dual floppy drives, no HDD and booting up to DOS  8)

[Jonny]

I remember having an Apache helicopter game that I bought in a garage type sale in my school gymnasium. I spent ages trying to get it to work, but the floppy disk prevailed! And I was literally like:

HOLY shite- FIRST I'M IN A HELICOPTER, NOW I'M IN A HOVERCRAFT, BLOODY HELL!

It was an awesome game.

[dheim]

I dont object to old games...but newer is typically better, in my experience. I liked civ 2 better than civ 3, though, at least in part because of the videos of the status analyst people, and when you were at war and winning the military guy was drunk :lol:

well, the close combat series has still got its beauty... even if theatre of war is way better (in terms of graphics, realism and complexity), cc III to V remain among my favourite games of all time...